My God Will Hear Me (Part 2)
By Andrew Murray
Part 1 of this article, containing points one through three, was printed in the July issue. If you missed Part 1, you are welcome to write and request a copy of the July 2008 Herald of His Coming.
"I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God!" (Psalm 17:6).
"I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me" (Micah 7:7).
4. "My God will hear me." What a solemn responsibility! How often we complain of darkness, or feebleness, or failure, as if there were no help for it. Yet God has promised in answer to our prayer to supply our every need, and give us His light and strength and peace. Would that we realized the responsibility of having such a God and such promises and yet being guilty of the sin and shame of not availing ourselves of them to the utmost. How confident we should feel that the grace which we have accepted and trusted to enable us to pray as we should, will be given.
This access to a prayer-hearing God is especially meant to make us intercessors for our fellow men. Christ obtained His right of prevailing intercession by giving Himself a sacrifice to God for men, and through it receives the blessings He dispenses. Even so, if we have truly with Christ given ourselves to God for men, we share His right of intercession, and are able to obtain the powers of the heavenly world for them, too. In answer to prayer the Spirit can be poured out, souls can be converted, believers can be established. In prayer the kingdom of darkness can be conquered, souls brought out of prison into the liberty of Christ, and the glory of God be revealed. Through prayer the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, can be wielded in power, and in public preaching as in private speaking, the most rebellious can be brought to bow at Jesus’ feet.
What a responsibility on the Church to give herself to the work of intercession! What a responsibility on every minister, missionary and worker set apart for the saving of souls – to yield himself wholly to act out and prove his faith: "My God will hear me!" What a call on every believer, instead of burying and losing this talent, to seek to the very utmost to use it in prayer and supplication for all saints and for all men. The deeper our entrance into the truth of this wondrous power God has given to men, the more wholehearted will be our surrender to the work of intercession.
5. "My God will hear me." What a blessed prospect! I see that my failure, especially in the work of intercession, has had its deepest root in this: I did not live in the full faith of the blessed assurance, "My God will hear me!" Praise God, I begin to see it, I believe it! All can be different. Or rather, I see Him, I believe Him. Yes, me, even me! Commonplace and insignificant though I be, filling but a very little place so that I will scarcely be missed when I go – even I have access to this Infinite God, with the confidence that He hears me.
One with Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, I dare to say: "I will pray for others, for I am sure my God will listen to me." What a blessed prospect before me: every earthly and spiritual anxiety exchanged for the peace of God, who cares for all and hears prayer. What a blessed prospect in my work: to know that even when the answer is long delayed and there is a call for much patient, persevering prayer, the truth remains infallibly sure that "My God will hear me!"
And what a blessed prospect for Christ’s Church if we could all give prayer its place, give faith in God its place, or rather, give the prayer-hearing God His place! Is not this the one great thing that those who begin to see the urgent need of prayer ought to pray for? When God at the first, time after time poured forth the Spirit on His praying people, He laid down the law for all time: as much of prayer, so much of the Spirit. Let each one who can say, "My God will hear me!" join in the fervent supplication that throughout the Church that truth may be restored to its true place. Then the blessed prospect will be realized: a praying Church will be endued with the power of the Holy Ghost.
6. "My God will hear me." What a need of divine teaching! We need this both to enable us to hold this word in living faith and to make full use of it in intercession. It cannot be said too often or too earnestly that it is very needful for the Church of our day to have the power of the Holy Spirit. It is so from the divine side and as truly so from the human side that there is extreme need for more prayer, more believing, persevering prayer for the Spirit.
In speaking of lack of the Spirit’s power and the condition for receiving it, there is much to be confessed and taken away in us if the Spirit is to work freely. But also sadly lacking are the upward look, and the deep dependence, and the strong crying to God, and the effectual prayer of faith that avails. And it is this that is the thing most needful. Might God so reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing God that our whole being may respond, "My God will hear me!"
– Abridged from The Ministry of Intercession by Andrew Murray.